Dynamo/Rain Douse Fire

After a three week hiatus, the Houston Dynamo returned to action on Sunday night against the Chicago Fire. Will Bruin notched his first goal of the year, but a deflected free kick and rain delays brought an early end to the match.

Let’s call the tie exactly what it was: a wasted opportunity by the Chicago Fire to score three points at home against a team that was missing three-fourths of its starting midfield. While Chicago has all the speed in the world and just this week re-acquired even more in Chris Rolfe, they were unable to unlock the Houston defense over the rain shortened game. The end result was more the loss of two points by an Eastern Conference rival in the Fire than Houston gaining a point.

Houston now has seven points from its first four games on the road. It took Houston until August 6, 2011 to get its first seven points on the road. While Sporting Kansas City is off to a fantastic start themselves, there is no reason that Houston should not finish near the top of the Eastern Conference if they can play as well in the new digs as they did at Robertson in 2011.

As for individual performances, suspensions and injuries provided the opportunity for Nathan Sturgis, Jermaine Taylor, and Luiz Camargo to start. Nathan Sturgis played very well while Camargo continued to look out of sync in 2012. One would have hoped that Camargo would have taken the three weeks of training to fully incorporate into the Dynamo attack, but the midfielder made several turnovers that he just did not make last year.

Corey Ashe put in a solid performance at left midfielder and Jermaine Taylor made a strong argument for inclusion in the starting lineup as Houston’s left side dealt well with the pace of the Fire attack. Will Bruin continues to build upon his great start to the 2012 season netting his first goal from a beautiful Brian Ching pass. While it may have taken a little longer than the second-year forward may have liked to notch his first goal, his overall play has been instrumental in Houston’s hot start on the season.